


Crawl Out Through the Fallout

by Fallout_Girl



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Diary/Journal, F/M, POV First Person, former soldier female sole survivor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-05-21 05:51:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6040645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallout_Girl/pseuds/Fallout_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Olivia left the army she thought she'd be a civilian for the rest of her life.</p><p>She was wrong about that, and a lot of other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day One?

**Author's Note:**

> Characters and relationships added to the tags as they appear. I also use a fair number of mods when I play and some of them are reflected in the story.

 

I found this notebook and some pencils here in the vault, and with as much shit as I have in my head I need to write it down before it leaks out and I never get it back.

Things to remember:

  * Woman took Shaun and man killed Nate. 
  * Woman in full isolation suit (hazmat?  ~~clean suit?~~  radiation suit?) seemed to know what was happening in the vault more than the man, but he seemed in charge. She's a tech? Vault-Tec employee? No Vault-Tec logo or colors and they plaster it on everything, so prob. not. But then who does she work for? Roughly 5'5", hard to say anything else.
  * Man not protected (so hers prob. not clean suit, he'd contaminate anything she was keeping clean), wearing leather jacket, metal arm or armor sleeve on left arm, used large caliber revolver (.45?). Bearing not military, clothing had no insignia and no indicated affiliation. Caucasian, roughly 5'10", avg. build, must be strong to use .45 one-handed with min. kick. Balding, cropped close what graying hair he had left, scruff on face same length. Vert. scar across middle of left eye running from forehead down to jaw. Rough voice, matches general appearance of hard life. Maybe late 50s, early 60s. If it's been too long he might be dead. Please don't be dead, I need to kill him.
  * Woman tried to take Shaun, Nate refused, man gave one warning before he shot Nate in the head from approx. 2 ft. Seemed like that wasn't the plan, man swore when it happened. Maybe if Nate had handed Shaun over he'd be here with me.   
  
I wouldn't have let him go either.



Things to find out:

  * How much time passed? Bombs fell 23 Oct 77, last dated security terminal entry 23 Apr 78, followed by "final entry" unknown time later (no more than days, based on tone and content). Bodies here fully desiccated, been a while since they died.   ~~Large~~  GIANT roaches must have had time to evolve (radiation? always thought giant rad bugs were scifi). Roaches > two feet long. Urgh. Punched two to death before I found a weapon. Not enough soap in the world. If there's still soap, or a world.
  * What authorities exist now? Vault empty of life (except giant roaches) but maybe local govt in Boston? DC surely hit, president and whoever else probably in their own vault somewhere.
  * What the fuck was Vault-Tec doing freezing us? Nobody said anything about that. Notes on overseer's computer says it was experiment. WTF?
  * Why take Shaun but no one else? Because of who I am, or because he was only infant in vault? Left Cindy Cofran and she was only eight, why didn't they want her if they were after kids?
  * Why did everyone but me die from malfunction? Were we just abandoned after mutiny in 78? Man who took Shaun called me "backup." Maybe others died at the same time as Nate and I was the only one turned back on? I need to stop thinking about that until I can actually get some answers or I'll never get up from this table.



Things to do:

  * Sleep. I would have thought that as long as I've been frozen (not that I know how long that is, but at least six months and probably multiple years) that I'd be done sleeping for a while but nope, I'm exhausted. Behind where I'm sitting now there are a few rooms with beds. I'm having a hard time focusing and I still get these wracking coughs and full-body chills. I don't know what's outside the vault so I can't leave while I'm in this state. Going to bunk down under every blanket I can find and get myself back into the closest thing to normal.
  * Sketch man's face when hands aren't so shaky. Maybe Nate's and Shaun's too so I don't forget.
  * Go to house, dig up trunks. If houses (or foundations) are still there and river still runs I can triangulate from there and shouldn't have to dig too much. That gets me MREs plus clothing, ammo, and weapons better than this stupid vault suit and the 10mm popguns I found here.
  * See if Jake's root cellar is intact. He has all sorts of crap down there I can probably use, and might make good shelter if houses are gone.
  * Head toward Boston and look for anyone who can help me.
  * Maybe pray.




	2. Day Two?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's still not sure what year it is, but she knows she can't stay in the vault forever.

I don't think I slept too much more than a normal night's sleep - I'm not crampy or stiff, but it's only a guess. 

Today I plan to range outside the vault, assuming the doors will open. The air seems good in here, if a bit stale, but the volume is so great that I don't know if it's actually circulating or if it's just too much air for me to use up in the time I've been ~~awake~~ unfrozen. There's power and running water, so there must be a generator and pump somewhere, but I haven't found any food. The security logs from yesterday's exploration said that the mutiny was due to running out of food so it makes sense that I haven't found anything. When the giant roaches start to seem like an acceptable meal I know it's time to leave.

If this is the last thing I write, then so be it. If anyone finds this, I am Captain Olivia Anne Merriam, USA Retired, DOB 21 Jan 2051. My husband was Nathan James Wilkes, DOB 18 Jul 2052. My son ~~was~~ ~~is~~ ~~was~~ is Shaun Nathan Wilkes, DOB 1 Aug 2077. We lived in Sanctuary Hills at the edge of Minuteman National Historic Site, and took shelter in Vault 111 on 23 Oct 2077. That's probably as good a date of death as any other for Nate - I'm not sure how alive we really were, all frozen like that. I don't remember dreaming like I would have if I'd been asleep, and the mirrors here seem to show me almost the same face I had the day the bombs fell.

I can have an existential crisis over how old I am when I find out if I'm the last person in the world or not.

I must have still been in shock yesterday to not notice that I split my chin and lip open something fierce. My guess is that I hit it on the floor or the edge of the door when I fell out of the cryo chamber, but since I didn't feel it until I woke up today I can't be sure when it happened. I had blood on myself pretty much the whole time but I assumed it was all from Nate. The overseer's desk had a few stimpaks, so I was able to stop the bleeding and get it closed up, but after multiple hours untreated it'll scar. Made it through five years in the army without any facial scars. Vault-Tec keeps on giving.

I hope Nate can rest in peace for now. I'll be back to bury him ~~if I ever~~ when I find Shaun, but if there's one thing I learned in Alaska it's that taking care of the living has to take priority over taking care of the dead.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on Shaun's age: he's still swaddled on his back in his crib, which to me says he's not more than a couple of months old.


	3. 25 October 2287

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reality catches up with Olivia's emotions.

Yep, that's correct. 2287. Jesus fucking Christ I was frozen for 210 years, maybe to the day.

The good news is, Codsworth is somehow still functional and was hovering in front of the house when I arrived. Jake's root cellar was still present and secure, as were my buried trunks. I now have gold, cash, my sidearm and rifle, what I hope is enough ammo for both, three sets of BDUs that are far more comfortable than that vault suit that kept crawling up my ass, three weeks of MREs, a medkit, and a travel pack all ready to go. I left a ton of canned goods and half the MREs in the root cellar, figuring I can come back for them if needed.

I wonder what happened to Jake: some canned goods were opened, and somebody had obviously been down there, but no sign of him or his husband. I didn't see his name in the vault records, so he definitely wasn't in the vault when the bombs fell.

The houses are all in pretty bad shape and a few seem to have had some squatters over the intervening years, but I saw worse in Alaska turned into livable quarters. Parts from the ones that have collapsed or are structurally unsound would make great additions to the ones that are still standing, to patch up holes in the roofs and walls. I'm not sure I should stay here in the long-term, though. There are ghosts everywhere. I tripped over the Rosa kid's overturned, rusted tricycle in my haste to get to Codsworth, and I can't stay somewhere that holds this many reminders of what I've lost.

I skipped adding more to yesterday's entry because it was all just too much. So "day two" was 24 October according to Codsworth, and I updated my Pip-Boy to the correct date. 

Oh yeah, I've also got a Pip-Boy now. A ~~corpse~~ ~~body~~  scientist by the vault exit had one, and I needed it to open the doors, so I figured I might as well keep it. It's weird wearing one again after so long - the last time I wore one full-time was in Alaska, per regulations, but I know that they are really useful in the field. The Geiger counter feature, at least, should be far more useful than I would have expected in civilian life.

I can also receive a radio station with a live DJ named Travis from somewhere called "Diamond City" so someone somewhere has the technology to at least broadcast. There's a classical station as well, but there's no voice and it's pretty repetitive so for all I know it's an old numbers station that just hasn't blown a fuse yet. There's something reassuring about hearing Travis read advertisements, even if he's not very good at it. I guess it makes things feel a little more normal. If people are running radio stations and hair salons and bars the world can't be completely gone to hell. Of course, there's also a place called "Swatters" advertising things you can beat people to death with, so it's not all tea and crumpets.

And I've allowed myself to go off on those tangents to avoid admitting what I've spent the last 36 hours doing: lying on the floor of Shaun's room cradling a rocket from his mobile, sobbing until I fell asleep, waking up, and doing it all over again. Fortunately Codsworth is here and on full alert or who knows what sort of things my wailing might have attracted. He's the one that found the radio stations on the Pip-Boy - he told me he was going to clean and calibrate it while I "had a good rest" and when I woke up it was lying beside me with "Jupiter, Bringer of Jolility" flowing out of it. It helped more than I would have expected, though whether it was the song itself or just having Codsworth do something nice for me I don't know.

He convinced me to help him check the neighborhood for threats once more this evening, though with the way he handled the giant insects yesterday (bloatflies and bloodbugs, he called them; I call them "houseflies that are too fucking big" and "mosquitoes that are WAY too fucking big") I sincerely doubt he needed my help. I don't know if robots can have nervous breakdowns or not, but if it's possible I think that's what happened to him in the intervening 210 years. He was very weird when I first talked to him, refusing to acknowledge that Nate and Shaun weren't just hiding around the corner as some sort of joke. I had to speak pretty harshly to him to get him to acknowledge most of reality, although he still seems to be in denial about Nate being dead. He seems pretty thrilled to have me back, to have someone to serve again, so I'm finding it hard to tell him no about anything for fear of breaking him again.

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of this journal is, other than habit. I never did put my old civilian ones in the footlocker and the ones from my army days are probably in the remains of some filing cabinet in the Pentagon, so they're all lost to me now. Maybe I'll let Shaun read it when he's old enough. Maybe somebody will find it on my bloatfly-ridden corpse and use it for toilet paper.

Well I guess that's my positive affirmation of the day.

At any rate, it's now almost midnight and I plan to set out for Concord in the morning. Codsworth said he's pretty sure there are people living there, though it sounds like they're unlikely to be friendly. Diamond City seems a decent place to set as a goal, assuming I can find out where it is.

The PSYOPS part of me says to be wary of an elaborate trap, but for the life of me I can't figure out why anyone would put this Travis kid on the air with the goal of luring people in unless they were trying to project an air of helpless incompetence. The rest says that community is a basic human need and that it makes sense that a place would need to be fairly stable and peaceful to warrant a radio station, bars, and stores.

Still, it probably wouldn't hurt to see if I can scrounge up the parts for a Stealth-Boy or two and do some recon before committing myself to a course of action. Argh. I guess I'll see what I find in Concord and go from there.

Oh, before I forget to write it down: one of the Ables was a chem dealer! How did I not know that?


	4. 26 October 2287

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olivia finally gets on the road to Concord, although it's a little later than she'd have liked.

 12:30

There goes my plan to set out for Concord today. I woke up to a hellacious dust storm of some sort. So instead of leaving I'm sitting here playing charades with Codsworth because that's a great use of my time.

* * *

16:30, Red Rocket between Sanctuary Hills and Concord

I guess I have a dog now. 

We are currently sitting at the Red Rocket station that's just on the other side of the Old North Bridge from Sanctuary Hills. I had planned to just check the building for supplies when the dog trotted up to me, and I'll admit that I almost shot him without even thinking about it. On the road just after the bridge there was a dead man and the body of what I guess was a dog, but it was like it was missing its skin. It's a relief to know that not all dogs look like that now. It hadn't occurred to me that the mammals that are left might be as messed up as the bugs until I saw the dog-thing, so I'm glad the dead guy was normal-looking or I might have just given up on Concord and gone back to spend the rest of my life playing charades with Codsworth.

The dog is yellow-brown and white and one of his ears stands up while the other flops over. A good size: not huge like a mastiff or even a Rottweiler, but big enough to be threatening. Maybe some sort of German Shepherd Dog mixed with golden retriever and a few other things. He's friendly and healthy, so I'm guessing he hasn't been out here alone for long. He sniffed out some creatures that looked like naked mole rats on steroids before they could ambush us, so he's got his uses other than being the first living thing I've seen that hasn't tried to attack me.

* * *

22:34, Concord, Museum of Freedom

I somehow managed to stumble across the last Minuteman in the Commonwealth. Dogmeat and I (yes, that's his name and no, I didn't name him) were just barely in Concord proper when I heard gunshots, but they were too far away to realistically have been firing at me. I intended to do some recon to evaluate the situation before deciding whether or not to just skip Concord altogether when Dogmeat just ran toward the shots, barking his head off. I chased him mostly to try to stop him, although with no collar I'm not sure what I could have done short of tackling him to the ground. He went around the corner of a building at Monument and Lowell and the next thing I heard was a muffled growl and a man screaming "Get off me!" By the time I made it around the same corner, Dogmeat had literally ripped the guy's throat out.

I don't like barging into situations without knowing what the hell is going on, but I couldn't just let Dogmeat fight all of those people on his own. Call me sentimental; he was my first friend in this new world and I wasn't going to lose him after just a few hours. So I unslung my rifle from my back, chambered a round, and popped my upper body around the corner just long enough to estimate the number of hostiles.  Six, by that first count, but there were several multi-story buildings with storefronts that could have hidden more. Two men were menacing Dogmeat and the rest were facing away from me toward the Museum of Freedom building.

After taking a calming breath and deciding on a plan of action, I stepped out from the corner at the same time I brought the scope to my eye and aimed at the head of a large man in rags and leather who was kicking ineffectually at Dogmeat. Shot fired, he went down with an entry wound above his ear, I chambered another round. Second target was the other guy trying to hit Dogmeat; this one had a tire iron. Another head shot, another one down. At this point the other raiders noticed the gunfire from behind them and began to turn away from their original target, which led me to notice the laser fire coming from the balcony of the building. The shooter up there took excellent advantage of the distraction I provided and shot one of the raiders through the back, then another in the head. By the time he was firing that second shot, I had taken out a woman who was running at Dogmeat with a machete raised and a snarl on her face. The guy on the balcony finished off the last one, shooting them twice in rapid succession after Dogmeat tripped them in the middle of the street.

I began a careful patrol down the street, weapon still at the ready, taking cover at every opportunity. The storefronts didn't seem to be hiding any additional raiders, and when I was about halfway to the museum the man on the balcony yelled something about helping him inside the museum and there being settlers up there with him.

So, like the trusting rube I have never ever been prior to that moment, I grabbed the "laser musket" dropped by a guy by the front door and headed inside the museum, putting my finger over my lips to hopefully tell Dogmeat to be quiet and not run in barking his fool head off this time. My weapons were all better than the laser weapon (and more importantly, I knew them like I knew my own arm), but the guy on the balcony seemed pretty insistent that it was important so what the heck.

More idiots inside the building plus decayed floors and busted stairwells made for hazardous progress, but I managed to snag a fusion core from the basement thanks to a slanted floor and some seriously shoddy computer security. The raiders were pretty stupid, more concerned with _sounding_ menacing than actually _being_ menacing. They'd spread out in ones and twos all over the building despite knowing exactly where the settlers were holed up. They then managed to reveal all of those stupid positions by yelling insults and threats at me and the settlers, as well as communicating with each other primarily by yelling at the top of their lungs. As long as I didn't go running headlong into anyplace I ran very little risk of one of them getting the jump on me.

So finally, with some help from Preston and Sturges, I reached the settlers and found out what the hell the situation was: it was textbook SNAFU. The settlers seemed to have pinned their hopes of escape on a set of what Sturges seemed to think was "cherry" power armor but I would have classified as run-down junk. Not wanting to stomp on what they clearly thought was a very fine plan that included using a vertibird-mounted minigun as a handheld weapon, I agreed to just end the back and forth arguments by leaving them all there and getting the power armor. 

I didn't expect to get grabbed on my way out of the room by a lady dressed like a fortune teller on a really bad day and told that I have a destiny. She also told me Dogmeat's name and seemed to think that he'd led me to them, which I can't exactly argue against.

I also didn't bargain for a "last words" holotape from the owner of the power armor, who saw the writing on the wall when his fusion core died. 

But I played my part in the takedown of the reinforcement raiders and what turned out to be a "deathclaw" which, whatever, I'm going to keep calling "another thing that is way too fucking big" and make a strict policy to avoid. It was like somebody took a T. rex and stuck horns on it, because that's what it needed to make it pants-shittingly horrifying instead of just regular horrifying.

I left the armor out on the museum steps because frankly I think I might have fallen into several sub-basements with its weight in those floors. By the time I got back inside, the survivors had all moved down to the entryway and were arguing about what to do next.

As soon as I joined them, Preston handed me a bag full of bottlecaps. I would never in a million years have guessed that Nuka-Cola caps would become the currency of the future, but apparently it is. My gold and cash are pretty much worthless unless I find the right buyer. This world keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Speaking of weird shit, some of the mammals are just as fucked up as the insects and the reptiles. I saw a dead cow with two heads right after Dogmeat and I left the Red Rocket. Preston tells me that they're all like that now, and they just call them Brahmins. The deer have two heads as well; they call them "radstags" even if they're female. "Radstag doe" seems really weird and contradictory but whatever. Clearly no one thought to wait for me to wake up so they could consult me on naming new flora and fauna.

Preston Garvey, last of the Commonwealth Minutemen. Has the outfit to go with it, complete with a laser musket like the one he insisted I grab off the dead guy earlier. It looks like some sort of kludge job of old laser rifle parts with wooden stock extenders and a crank to charge it. I'm not sure how a place this fucked up managed to produce someone who has remained so kind and optimistic after everything he's been through, but here he is in the flesh. The Minutemen apparently had some sort of civil war down in Quincy, which is why Preston's the last one. The other four are survivors from there, looking for somewhere safe.

Sturges has the most ridiculous pompadour I've ever seen and arms that are about as big around as my waist. I'm not surprised to hear that he's a mechanic by trade. He's pretty sensible and seems to be all about practical solutions, crazy vertibird power armor minigun plans notwithstanding.

Mama Murphy is the lady who told me I have a destiny. She claims that with the help of chems she can see things and that she currently can sense Shaun's energy somewhere. I'm not sure whether to be insanely angry with her or ask her more. Right now I'm just waiting to see more of this world before I decide.

Marcy and Jun Long lost their child in the transit from Quincy, which I only found out about from Preston. Jun hasn't said a word and Marcy is suspicious of me, and I can't blame either of them but it makes for difficult conversation.

Sturges seems to be the voice of reason in this group, for which I am thankful. Not that it's him, just that it's someone other than me. Preston is really nice, and in some circumstances that's not helpful. Jun doesn't (can't, probably) contribute anything, Mama Murphy is either seriously psychic or bugnuts crazy (or maybe both?), and Marcy seems to be confrontational about everything whether she needs to be or not. The decision made once Sturges raised his voice a bit was to head for Sanctuary Hills in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "SNAFU" means "situation normal: all fucked up."


	5. 27 October 2287

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returning to Sanctuary for the second time, Olivia gets to know the people she saved in Concord and learns more about the world she's now stuck in.

07:00, Concord, Museum of Freedom

Just about to head out after a night's rest at the museum. Preston is anxious to get everyone on the road to Sanctuary Hills, which he and Mama Murphy keep shortening to just "Sanctuary" despite my continued use of the correct name. I'm sure that's symbolic of something but I can't be bothered to ponder it right now. 

Hopefully Codsworth has made some progress with clearing out any vermin, oversize or not, and the Longs can just have someplace to _be_ for a while so they can deal with their loss. Part of me wants to smack Marcy for being so nasty, especially to Jun, who has the same loss but seems to be dealing with it far worse. At least Marcy is capable of brushing her hair and moving around. All her husband seems capable of is sitting with his arms around his knees, sometimes rocking or letting out an almost inaudible moan, but mostly just staring. I'm not even sure he slept last night: he was in the same position when I woke up that he was when I fell asleep. But everyone deals with loss in their own way and I guess hers is to be horrible to everyone. Mine was to cry on Shaun's floor for two days and then take on a dozen and a half armed thugs and a dinosaur.

I'm not sure whose method is healthiest, but Jun's certainly seems to have the least collateral damage.

Ah, well. Time to see if my second return home is better than the first.

* * *

13:00, Sanctuary Hills

Preston is _really_ into the Minutemen, both the current iteration and the one from the Revolution. I think that I now know the names of all the people he's served with, what they were like, and how they died. I really could have done without that last bit. 

When we reached the Old North Bridge, he got super excited by the Minutemen Memorial statue and started going on and on about Battle Road and Paul Revere. It occurred to me that the house at Meriam's Corner might not have survived the past two hundred years (it had only survived into the twenty-first century by being added to Minute Man National Historic Park and getting federal money - wood houses don't tend to last four hundred years without help). I told him that if the old Battle Road trail wasn't marked anymore I could probably find it if he wanted to walk it someday, and then I remembered that I hadn't quite explained the whole "frozen for two centuries" part of my biography yet, which would explain the odd look he gave me. I also hadn't realized it when I left, but the obelisk on the far side of the bridge is missing. Strange that the statue remains but the obelisk doesn't.

At any rate, we have made it back to Sanctuary Hills. Codsworth has done an amazing amount in just 24 hours, dismantling two of the ruined houses and not only patching a few roofs and walls but making several shacks from the pieces. They actually look pretty sturdy! He also gathered a bunch of miscellaneous stuff from around the neighborhood, like mattresses and coffee cups, and went out into the surrounding area and gathered something called "mutfruit" in pretty large quantities. The beginnings of a generator stood next to the Rosa house. I guess having something to do is really good for him, because he was in high spirits. I introduced him to everyone and gave him permission to get the supplies out of Jake's root cellar to get some decent food and purified water into the new folks. I shared my MREs with them last night and this morning but I'm pretty sure they'd gone a while without much before I came across them.

I carried Shane Peck's body (the Minuteman from the museum entrance) back to Sanctuary and we buried him on the other side of the creek. We left the raiders and the deathclaw to rot or be eaten by scavengers in Concord, but Preston seemed touched when I asked if he wanted to lay his friend to rest properly. They've apparently been unable to really do anything but leave their dead behind the whole way from Quincy, which I know is a horrible feeling. I was under the impression last night that all of the other Minutemen were dead, but Preston told me on the walk here that some are just out there trying to make their way as farmers and that two of them who traveled from Quincy had been left behind because they were out scavenging when the main group had to run from an attack.

Sturges and I are going to set out in a few minutes to gather stuff from the Red Rocket station. With the power armor frame and no plating I can carry a lot of crap without too much drain on the core. I'll need to be sure that Sturges comes back with me; earlier he got as excited about a nearby garage as Preston did about the Minutemen statue.

* * *

 21:30, Sanctuary Hills

 I swear that Sturges had a tiny orgasm when he saw the contents of the Red Rocket. Between the power armor station and all the tools he just kept shouting his excitement at me. We rigged up the bed of a broken-down pickup to run on its rims and separated it from its cab, so rather than carry everything in the power armor frame I acted as draft horse for the makeshift wagon. I kept having to remove things that Sturges added because if it were up to him we'd just dismantle the whole place and cart it the mile down the road to Sanctuary so he could rebuild it and live there forever. I finally managed to convince him that we really only needed to bring back things that would help us repair and live in the houses that are still standing and that if he wanted to come back and get things for juicing up cars and power armor he was welcome to do so at some future date.

It turns out that the guys who ran the Red Rocket station weren't properly disposing of their radioactive waste and were instead just chucking it into a natural cavern behind the garage. The place was full of mole rats and some sort of glowing fungus that Sturges insists is edible (I'll wait until he has some and see if that pompadour of his falls out), but it was also full of storage containers and a fusion core and a bunch of rusty tools, so we've got a crapton of supplies now.

* * *

22:00, Sanctuary Hills

Jun just stopped by to talk. He'd overheard me telling Preston about Shaun earlier and wanted me to know that he hopes I find him.

His son's name was Kyle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Minute Man National Historic Park](https://www.nps.gov/mima/index.htm), [Meriam's Corner and Meriam House](http://www.merriamfamilytree.org/img_newwin.php?mediaID=2186&medialinkID=&title=Photo%3A+MERIAM+HOUSE+-+Nathan+Meriam+House%2C+built+1705), and [Battle Road](https://www.nps.gov/mima/planyourvisit/maps.htm) are all real places, although Bethesda decided to replace a large part of the northern end of the park with Sanctuary Hills and a Red Rocket station because why not. In an odd twist, they kept [the correct appearance of the Old North Bridge](http://imgur.com/gallery/apuBV).


	6. 28 October 2278

10:30 Sanctuary Hills

Preston is _really_   not shy about asking for favors but at least they're favors for other people. At breakfast this morning he told me that he wants to rebuild the Minutemen and needs my help in doing so. I agreed, partly because when I find Shaun I want him to be able to live in a world where he doesn't have to worry he's going to be shot or blown up, and partly because I have the feeling that the guy who took Shaun isn't going to give him up without a fight and I might need friends at my back. For now, Preston knows of a settlement called Tenpines Bluff that's about four hours east of here and shouldn't take me too far out of my way toward Diamond City.

Diamond City is, by the way, Fenway Park. I keep thinking that this place can't shock me any more than it already has, but finding out that the ball field is now a walled city is pretty high on the "I did not see that coming" list.

Setting out on a mission without good intel is a good way to end up dead, so I sat down with Sturges and Preston and got a crash course on the history of the past two hundred years and the locations of a bunch of settlements. We sketched maps in the dirt and I made notations in my Pip-Boy so that I will hopefully  _not_   be in completely over my head when I set out in an hour or so. Some of the settlements have familiar names, like Quincy and Lynn Woods, but many are just named for their owners and they don't mean anything to me.

I took notes on the page that follows this entry.

* * *

Threats

  * Gunners  
organized raider gang - do mercenary work, usually well-provisioned and uniformed, regimented, be very wary
  * Raiders  
mostly gangs but sometimes you'll run across a scout or scavver (someone who scavenges supplies)
  * Super Mutants  
green victims of some experiment
  * Synths  
gen 1s - humanoid robots, will attack on sight  
gen 2s - look like fake people, may be hostile or friendly  
gen 3s - look human, may be hostile or friendly
  * Feral Ghouls  
don't mistake regular ghouls for ferals  
ferals stay still until detected motion or sound, then run at you, no weapons, look melted - shoot on sight  
regular ghouls still have minds and behave like normal humans - don't shoot on sight
  * Deathclaws
  * Feral Dogs  
can be regular or mutated
  * Radscorpions  
gigantic scorpion, because OF COURSE IT IS



Places I might find allies 

  * Tenpines Bluff - rough loc of Pinehurst
  * Greentop Nursery - rough loc of Melrose
  * Abernathy Farm - W of Concord, S of Sanct
  * Country Crossing - near Malden
  * Bunker Hill - active trading post, good for supplies and rumors
  * Nordhagen Beach - near Winthrop



Places to avoid due to hostiles

  * most former military bases have raiders or gunners entrenched
  * many individual buildings and fenced-in areas are full of ferals
  * gunners hold interchange W of city, Quincy, and old GNN HQ, maybe more that P and S don't know about
  * super mutants seem to favor high places like skyscrapers and satellite dishes but can be lots of places



* * *

20:00, Tenpines Bluff

The couple who lives here needs help with a raider gang that's been hitting them regularly. They're pretty sure the gang is holed up at the Corvega factory, but that's just a guess based on what they've overheard from raiders talking to each other while getting their protection money. I promised that I'd check it out after I go to Diamond City and that I would take care of the raiders if possible. In the meantime, I've decided to leave Codsworth here to help them rebuild some fences and defend the place if anyone else troubles them before I'm back. They've agreed to support the Minutemen in ~~our~~ their attempts to restore some safety to the Commonwealth once they feel that their home is safe, so provided that I can actually handle the raiders that's Preston's favor taken care of. I ran across two bodies that had evidence they'd been killed and robbed on the way here, so I also added the stipulation that if I send innocent people in need of help to Tenpines that they will take them in. They hemmed and hawed about it until I pointed out that more people means more people with guns to defend the settlement. Preston didn't ask me to do that, but it seems like it's in the spirit of what the Minutemen are trying to achieve so I don't feel bad about it.


End file.
